MEDIA WATCH

Guardian: Now dissent is 'immoral'
Just about the only person criticising Bush in the US media is Sean Penn - and he paid $125,000 for the privilege

Some of you, many of you, are not going to like what you hear tonight," said Ted Koppel, the senior American news anchor as he introduced Arundhati Roy, the Indian novelist, activist and critic of US foreign policy, to his show shortly after September 11. "You don't have to listen. But if you do, you should know that dissent sometimes comes in strange packages..."
The introduction, such as it was, told us less about Roy than it did about both Koppel and the mindset that has dominated the American media since the collapse of the twin towers. It reflects at best a reluctance, and at worst a downright refusal, to engage with views and voices opposed to George Bush's foreign policy. It illustrates a tendency to dismiss rather than discuss, and deride rather than debate - to circle the wagons around nationhood, leaving questions about what is being done in the nation's name and why, on the outside.

"This nation is now at war," said Peter Beinart, the editor of the liberal magazine New Republic. "And in such an environment, domestic political dissent is immoral without a prior statement of national solidarity, a choosing of sides."